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I will argue that from a CR perspective, social reality is complex. It just is not complex in the ways CT suggests. Even emergence, according to CR, is more complex and stronger than CT suggests. First wave CR is enough to advance the issue considerably, but I will also examine dialectical CR as a further attempt within CR to take account of complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is trying to explore the Uses and Gratification hypothesis, as it applies to Twitter political debates. The findings show that the level of ideological segregation online may be lower than the previous research in this area indicated. Simultaneously, this study may provide an unexpected support for the Uses and Gratifications hypothesis. It comes from the conclusion that many people may find gratification in entertaining themselves by political hate speech. And morality may be one of the main driving forces behind this phenomenon because the sense of one’s own moral superiority is so gratifying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is a response to the new book by Alexander Wendt (2015) entitled Quantum Mind. The paper commends Wendt on the book's contribution to our understanding, particularly of quantum mechanics, panpsychism, and externalism in the philosophy of mind. At the same time, it takes issue with Wendt's overall thesis, particularly as it relates to materialism, emergentism, and social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to an article by philosopher Tony Lawson on the contrasting social ontologies of his Social Ontology Group at Cambridge University and the Social Ontology Group headed by philosopher John Searle at the University of California at Berkeley. He comments on Lawson's use of the term positioning, which seems to mean set socially to function as, while Searle considers the social as what functions socially. He considers Lawson's social ontology as too subjectivist.

This paper is a commentary on Christian Smith's 'The Conceptual Incoherence of 'Culture' in American Cultural Sociology.' This paper accepts Smith's finding of conceptual incoherence at the disciplinary level and argues that it is a symptom of empiricism in American sociology. The paper suggests we employ conceptual analysis as practiced by analytical philosophy and proceeds to show how the use of that methodology can resolve the problem regarding the meaning of culture. In the end, the paper defends a conception of culture along the lines of Archer's (1996) intelligibilia, interpreted as action and its products bearing social reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physicist Max Tegmark argues that if there are infinite universes or sub-universes, we will encounter our exact duplicates infinite times, the nearest within $$ 10^{{10^{115} }} $$ m. Tegmark assumes Humean supervenience and a finite number of possible combinations of elementary quantum states. This paper argues on the contrary that Tegmark's argument fails to hold if possible thoughts, persons, and life histories are all infinite in number. Are there infinite thoughts we could possibly think? This paper will show that there are. If so, then it is not only Tegmark's specific claim about our duplication that is called into question. We additionally acquire another strong argument against Humean supervenience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarah Palin clearly holds a powerful appeal for a right-wing constituency although even her most fervent followers may doubt that she is electable. This article examines the basis of her appeal. We argue that it can be summed up as an appeal to American authenticity, which consists of several elements: the valorization of small town ordinary life takes second place to faith and religious commitment; an equal faith in American exceptionality implies that Americans should never be apologetic about their country and never waver in their belief in its special greatness; the final elements are a foundational libertarian creed and a peculiar brand of right-wing populism. However, for all her affinities with classical right-wing sentiment, Sarah Palin, we argue, brings something new to the mix: a genuinely maverick right-wing feminism. That is why in the end, we call the Palin phenomenon a paradoxical one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W. Bennett, R. Lawrence, and S. Livingston (2006, 2007) argue that the press—and the Washington Post in particular—acquiesced to Bush administration framing of the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The administration, they say, framed the events as the isolated abuse of prisoners by “a few bad apples” unreflective of higher responsibility or administration policy. Absent—or near absent, Bennett et al. maintain, was a Post counterframe of the mistreatment as a systematic effect of high level policy, better captured by the word torture. Such pattern of framing, Bennett et al. conclude, supports the Indexing model of U.S. press behavior. This article shows that Bennett et al. understate the strength and consistency of Post counterframing. When articles in the Post are searched not for individual words but for more extended frames, it becomes clear that the Post did in fact engage in considerable counterframing even in the absence of elite political opposition. This case, it is therefore concluded, does not in fact support the Indexing model as Bennett et al. maintain but is rather the kind of case described by R. M. Entman (2004) in which the press exercises greater independence of elite political opinion than the Indexing model admits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to Dave Elder-Vass's generally sympathetic critique of Margaret Archer's position on structure and emergence. Elder-Vass does helpfully emphasize the synchronic effects of structure. Yet, it is argued here, in his treatment of structure, Elder-Vass tends to concede too much to methodological individualism and to overemphasize social rules at the expense of social relations. Finally, a question is raised about how both Archer and Elder-Vass and Critical Realism in general speak of emergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social constructionist form of bracketing Peter Berger labeled "methodological atheism" is now a taken for granted presupposition in the sociological study of religion. This paper argues that in application to religious experience, methodological atheism is both untenable and injurious to sociology's aims. Even worse, consistently applied, methodological atheism ultimately dissolves the very category of experience. More truly neutral than methodological atheism, this paper argues, and actually more in line with what Berger seeks to protect, is a form of bracketing that might be labeled methodological agnosticism. Methodological agnosticism is the form of bracketing that tends to be employed by the psychology of religion. This paper argues that sociology should follow suit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the controversial development of spiritual turn in contemporary realism. Concept of spiritual turn; Relationship of spiritual turn to critical realism as a whole; Factors that led to such controversy.

This paper is a critical response to the newest version of the rational choice theory of religion (RCTR). In comparison with previous critiques, this paper takes aim at RCTR's foundational assumption of psychological egoism and argues that the thesis of psychological egoism is untenable. Without that thesis, the normative aspects of religious commitment cannot be reduced validly to instrumental reason. On neither conceptual nor empirical grounds therefore can religion or religious commitment be defined comprehensively in terms of exchange theory. With the failure of psychological egoism as a point of departure, the paper articulates an alternative theory of religion, one based on the epistemic rationality grounded in religious experience and religious emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addresses the pedagogical advantages of teaching statistics as a topic integrated into teaching hands-on, problem-based computer-assisted data analysis. Design history; Choice of mainframe or microcomputer-based software; Real or artificial data sets; Service learning or classroom learning; Group collaboration or individual homework assignments.

In the second volume of his Theoretical Logic in Sociology (1982b), Jeffrey Alexander argues that Marxian theory is predicated on a unidimensional model of human action. That means that Marxian theory overlooks the normative dimension of action, thereby portraying human action as entirely egoistic and deterministic. This article argues that Alexander's criticisms of Marxian theory are unfounded, and, more fundamentally, that Alexander's unfounded criticisms reveal that his whole neo-Parsonian project is based on an underlying conception of human action that is seriously mistaken. A major objective of this article is to present a more tenable conception of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to reconsider the relationship between Marxism and existential-phenomenology in light of writer J. Margolis' terms of nonreductive materialism. Marxism is perhaps the most compelling and socially consequential school of sociology. Yet as long as it is tied to a reductionist materialism that denies human free will, its own moral component is threatened with nihilism. Existential-phenomenologically inclined Marxists have been correct to recognize and resist this. The existential-phenomenological approach does not necessarily presuppose an ontic dualism, which is evident from the work of writer M. Heidegger. It is therefore important that Margolis' non-reductive materialism involves neither of these weaknesses. It thus provides the basis for an understanding of Marx's materialism that does not preclude the commitments of existential-phenomenology.

With the increased sociological interest in popular culture, many studies have examined the hero types lauded by the media from situation comedies to movies, books, and magazines. Few studies, however, have examined who, if anybody, actual individuals identify as personal heroes. To the extent that the hero identification of individuals has been examined at all it has generally been the hero identification of children and adolescents that has been studied. The study of heroes is important because heroes are one indicator of who we are and what we stand for. That is partly what motivates the recent attention to the media's identification of heroes. Yet while the media represent a very visible aspect of culture, who individuals privately cite as their heroes is, although less visible, just as much a part of who we are as a culture. Accordingly, this paper reports on findings from two telephone surveys conducted in Philadelphia that, among other questions pertaining to the meaning of life, asked adults over 18 whether they had any heroes and if so who those heroes were. The tendency to identify with heroes was found to be related to transcendental concerns with the meaning of life and to religiosity. Overall, the pattern of findings discloses an unstudied dimension of cultural disenchantment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to synthesize the Winchian stress on constitutive rules with the Marxian stress on material relationships by developing the concept of emergent/v material social relations. Such relationships, it is argued , arise from the constitutive rules that constitute a group's way of life. Although such relationships thus are derivative from the conscious rule-following behavior of actors. nevertheless they have an objective existence independent of actors' specific awareness. It is argued that such material relations are an important mechanism beyond the cultural rules through which our behavior is constrained, enabled, and motivated. Yet the Winchian tradition in tradition in general and contemporary structurarion theory in particular have tended to peripheralize the notion of material relations, treating them largely as epiphenomenal abstractions. This, it is argued, is a mistake and the source of an important lacuna in structuration theory. In particular. because structuration theory decenters the actor, conflates the distinction between regulative and constituzive rules, and peripheralizes social relations, it lacks an adequate explanation of motivation, as symptomized by its inordinate appeal to the unconscious. The concept of emergently material social relations overcomes this problem and offers a reintegration of the Marxian and the Winchian traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines three models of participatory research: what we call the parallel process model, the mutual engagement model, and the University of Central America (UCA) model. These models represent successively greater degrees of academic engagement with outside communities — from complementary, though not necessarily uncommitted, engagement by academic(s); to compromised full engagement between the academic(s) and the community; to institutional engagement between the entire university and the community. Our analysis outlines the tensions that may arise within participatory research between service and scholarship. We conclude that for participatory research to capture the attention and involvement of the broader discipline, it must provide a spectrum of theory, methods, and substance that sociologists find of importance independent of the participatory way in which such contributions are generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]